Evolution at the Vatican
"Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories," held in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University (above), March 3-7, 2009.

In the Catholic world, all roads still lead to Rome, particularly when it comes to the vexed relationship between science and faith. In 2003, the Pontifical Council for Culture, with major grant support from the Templeton Foundation, began a project at the Vatican called Science, Theology, and the Ontological Quest (STOQ). As a result, six of the pontifical universities in Rome, where most Cardinals and other Church leaders receive training, have incorporated more science into their curricula and have initiated extensive dialogues on how Catholic theology should approach modern science. Courses have been designed on such topics as evolution, the philosophy of quantum mechanics, technology, and medicine.

The most notable recent instance of these activities was a five-day conference held last month in Rome under the auspices of STOQ and the Pontifical Gregorian University. "Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories" drew some 200 attendees from around the world. Speakers included such prominent figures in the field of evolutionary biology as Francisco Ayala (University of California, Irvine), Simon Conway Morris (Cambridge University), Jeffrey Feder (University of Notre Dame), Douglas Futuyma (Stony Brook University), Scott Gilbert (Swarthmore College), Stuart Kauffman (University of Calgary), Lynn Margulis (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), and David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton University), as well as the historians of science Ronald Numbers (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and Philip Sloan (University of Notre Dame), philosopher David Depew (University of Iowa), and the archeologist Colin Renfrew (Cambridge University).
Clockwise from upper left: Francisco Ayala, Stuart Kauffman, Colin Renfrew, and Ronald Numbers.

Gennaro Auletta, a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the scientific coordinator for STOQ, was pleased by the number of high-ranking Church officials who attended the conference, including Cardinal Levada, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Such interest, Auletta said, is a clear sign of the Church's eagerness to see clergy "play a major role in the context of modern society." As he continued, "The STOQ project is facing what we think is the most relevant challenge the Church has today: continuing to play a guiding role in our society as it is becoming more dependent on scientific developments. This requires the Church to open and pursue a real dialogue with the natural sciences. This does not mean renouncing its own strong and well-grounded philosophical and theological background but, rather, enriching and deepening it thanks to that dialogue."

(Report from the Templeton Foundation)